I received my new Canon camera today. I don’t really know how to use it, or to upload properly, but lack of knowledge has never stopped me before.

This is the view from outside my office window, taken a half hour ago. The West may be lavender as we speak, but the Northeast is a wintry gray.

This is a thumbnail photo but if you click on it you can see it in mega size. You’re looking out over the East River, with the South Street Seaport in the foreground, and the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges further up.

Twice a day, every day, there is a very brief interlude in the progression of time when the earth is bathed in a soft lavender light. Lavender is the most fleeting of all colors. It is a transitional color, a gentle kiss, the space between musical notes, or the pause between the end of a sentence, and the start of another.

Lavender can signal hello, or goodbye, depending on the time of day. The soft lavender of twilight quickly becomes a deep purple, then dark grey, falling off into blackness; dark heavens stretch out above us, starlight sparkling. At dawn, a gentle bath of lavender light rapidly becomes bright yellow. As the sun moves up in the sky, the full color spectrum comes alive: green trees, tan sand, blue water, the red hillside.

Goodbye to 2008, and my best wishes to everyone at ATW for the New Year.

I read that the two scumbags who stand accused of murdering two British soldiers have been handed over to the Iraqi authorities, to stand trial for their crimes in the country where those crimes were committed.

The last-ditch attempt to stay the transfer by the European Court of Human Rights was correctly denied by the British Government, and the two killers will have to cope with Iraqi justice, with it’s seemingly summary but welcome decisions as seen with our late friend Saddam and others. The ritual denunciation of the death penalty was spoken by Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth, but as the Appeal Court had spoken, he had no choice but to allow the transfer to continue.

No matter that some eighty-odd percent of the British population support such a penalty, with the only denunciations coming from the wet, the dripping wet and just about all left-wing politicians. No matter that we would not be able to re-introduce such a penalty because of our slavish adherence to European rules, none of which were explained to the British electorate before they were asked if we wanted to join or stay within Europe.

If you kill, you shall be killed! That should be the mantra of justice; instead of the wishy-washy ‘eight years is life’ sentences handed down by our liberal judges to killers who laugh as they commence their sentences in the holiday camps called British prisons!

We have seen globalised economic meltdown and the demise of some of major companies that have become household words. Like dirt. We have seen a new US President elected, and we have seen a Republican Party in search of its identity. In the UK we have witnessed Gordon Brown, the man who merrily presided over economic collapse, claim that only he can now save us! In Northern Ireland we have watched Ian Paisley exit the political stage and the marriage of IRA/Sinn Fein/DUP grow closer as Peter and Martin’s partnership of evil cements.

2008 was also the year that my first book was published and I am proud that I have managed to sell a few thousand copies of “Unionism Decayed.” It may not have been an international bestseller (!) but I put my soul into the writing of it and have learned many valuable lessons on what to do, and what NOT to do! Next year will see a new book from me, it will a comprehensive n exposure of BBC bias and I start the writing of it tomorrow.I feel I have many more books in me, God willing.

Here on ATW in 2008, there have been a remarkable 3414 posts, including this one. That’s quite an output, more than most blogs I fancy! I care nothing for all this “Best blog of the Year” trivia that seems to occupy some – all that counts to me is that you enjoy what we do here. Simple. I never ask for you to agree with me, but I am thankful you read me. I need to also thank all those writers who contribute here on ATW -along with those who have since moved on. Above all , I would like to thank the many who visit so regularly! Without YOU, this blog would not exist. I also should thank those generous souls who have hit the hat-tip button this year, your financial patronage is much appreciated by me.

It’s been a real breeze writing on ATW in 2008 and I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have composing it!

2009 will bring a fresh set of challenges politically, locally, nationally and internationally and we shall assuredly debate them here in our usual style!

You are all a great gang and I would like to finish 2008 by wishing you and yours a happy and peaceful New Year.

I received this morning, from my wife’s American-based relatives, yet another in the revolting yearly stream of Family Round Robins. Now personally I think the world of my wife’s relatives, as they are a really nice bunch of people, but I tend to draw the line at such treacly lines such as

“All are doing well in school at their own levels. XXXX is in gifted classes for math and is a great soccer player. ZZZZZ is also doing very well and plays baseball and saxophone. BBBBBB is the organizer and mother of the group; HHHHH loves singing, acting and piano; RRRRRR is an awesome gymnast and wants to be an Olympian; KKKKK is very sweet and marches to the beat of her own drum, and WWWWWW is very articulate and thinks she can do everything the others can do, and often she can, including saying the Pledge of Allegiance!”

So I thought I’d generate my own version of a typical British Family ’round robin’, but this time tinged with a little reality!

Hi all! Here we are again, celebrating yet another year of achievement in the wider Buggins family.

2008 has indeed been good to the Buggins’s. Tracey got pregnant again, which at the age of thirteen got her into the local newspapers; everyone agreed that her pictures didn’t do her justice, as they all concentrated on the forty-five tattoos on her thighs and stomach, enlarged as they were by her pregnancy. Tracey sez that they all asked her about the seventy-two different body piercings that she’d spent all that benefit money on, but instead they all concentrated on the tattoos.

Dad Buggins had a nasty shock in June this year, as he was filmed carrying four concrete blocks up a ladder on a building site. The shock was because the filming was done by a team from the Department of Work & Pensions, and as he was claiming the full rate of Disability Living allowance as he had stated that he couldn’t walk further than the garden gate, it was a little difficult. His brief at the Tribunal came up trumps however, and proved that the video was inadmissible as evidence because it had been out of the custody chain for two minutes and thirty-five seconds, and as he said, who knew what could have happened to the video during that time? The barrister brief was very helpful not only to Dad Buggins, but also to the other family members who had been in bother. He really was worth every penny of the twelve thousand pounds paid to him by the Legal Aid people!

Young Kevin was released from the Young Offenders Institute after serving the full term he had been (fitted up) sentenced to, after his run-in with that crippled gay bloke. The trial was a farce, as he had to stand up along with the seven other members of his gang youth club, none of whom were under six foot tall, and then the jury all watched as the crippled bloke was pushed past them in his specially-adapted wheelchair to the witness box. One of the reporters said it was dead unfair, especially as it showed the crippled gay bloke only had one leg to begin with!

Wayne, Kevin’s younger brother, who should have also been in the Offender’s Institute but wasn’t, mainly because he lied under oath on the stand, has been given a Grant of about thirty-five pounds a week to continue going to school until he’s eighteen years old. He’s a little puzzled about how he qualified, mainly because he can nether read nor write, but since it’s easy money, he ain’t complaining!

The court case against me and Dad regarding our so-called dangerous dogs harassing and attacking postmen and other people on the pavement is still on-going, but Dad and I have high hopes of a complete acquittal, as we’ve been able to speak to five of the six witnesses, and now it seems no-one wants to testify against us. Our four Dobermanns and three Rottweilers are still chained up for now, like the police demanded, but the barrister who spoke for Dad also said that some of the evidence against us is also probably contaminated, as none of the people who landed up in hospital can positively identify which of the seven dogs actually savaged the parts of their bodies which were removed in hospital!

Sharon, that’s Kevin’s third girlfriend had problems of her own as her baby has started crawling, and maybe it was a little unfortunate that the kid knocked over the jar holding all that cocaine, but the specialist reckons she’ll be out of hospital in about fourteen weeks; but there’ll be brain damage after she swallowed about four ounces of cocaine. Kevin’s promising to have a word with the Quigley’s son, who supplied the coke to Sharon, mainly on the grounds that the Quigleys always promised to make sure that all the coke was diluted to less than ten per cent purity, in order to maximise profits, and what were they thinking about selling ten ounces pure to someone who couldn’t afford it in the first place!

We struck lucky with the credit crunch, as this outfit that we bought all that flash furniture from at the beginning of the year has gone into liquidation, and Dad Buggins said it wasn’t half unfortunate that the computer files which held all the debtor files somehow got wiped in a burglary some three days before they declared bankruptcy. The manager swears that he’ll get even but we know it’s all just talk.

Hope all goes well with you, and with luck we’ll see you all in Torremolinas next year at the apartment block which Dad says no one will ever really find out who owns it, what with all the shell companies’ names on the mortgage documents!

In his new year message to the Conservative party, David Cameron yesterday accused the government of having “lost its moral compass”, and said it was immoral for Labour to be raising the levels of public and private debt.

The Tory leader also mocked Gordon Brown’s decision to adopt a Churchillian tone in his 2009 message, extracts of which were released last weekend in advance of full publication tomorrow. “The prime minister tells us to find our blitz spirit when he is the one dropping the bombs – the tax and debt bombshells that are taking Britain to the brink of bankruptcy,” Cameron said, in reference to Brown’s statement, in which he is expected to say the British people need to “display the same spirit” as their predecessors did during the second world war to help them through economic difficulties.Cameron, who repeatedly used the phrase “debt crisis” to describe Britain’s plight, went on: “This government has lost its moral compass. Where is the morality in asking our children to pay off our debts? Where is the morality in encouraging people who have already borrowed too much to borrow a little more? Where is the morality in trying to reflate the bubble and return the country to the age of irresponsibility that led us to this mess?”

Well, Cameron is WRONG. Labour cannot have lost its moral compass for the simple reason it never had one in the first place. This rabble of rabid socialists have the morality of an ally-cat and have spent their period in power destroying everything that makes Britain great.

I see that the oxymoronic European Court of Human Rights has BLOCKED the handover to the Iraqi authorities of the last two remaining prisoners held by British forces in Basra yesterday– just hours after the Court of Appeal in London ruled that they could be transferred.

The two Iraqi nationals, Faisal al-Saadoon, 56, and Khalaf Mufdhi, 58, are accused of the murder in Iraq of two British soldiers. The UK authorities want to transfer them from British custody there to Iraqi custody, for trial by the Iraqi High Tribunal. But the men claim that would violate their human rights because of the risk they could face torture, an unfair trial and the death penalty in Iraqi custody.

So, two Iraqi Jihadists kill two British soldiers. The UK seeks to have these alleged killers handed over to the lawful Iraqi authorities for due process but the EU Court says no. One more reason to loath the EU.

I see that two ambulancemen have been arrested for allegedly ignoring a dying man. They were detained after police were given a tape recording of them in the patient’s house in which they were said to have discussed not bothering to try to revive him.

The ambulance crew had been sent to Barry Baker’s home after he dialled 999 saying he thought he was having a heart attack. Ambulance controllers kept Mr Baker talking on the phone as they ordered the paramedic and ambulance technician to use their blue lights to get to him as quickly as possible. But 59-year-old Mr Baker, who was disabled and lived alone, collapsed unconscious while talking on the phone, leaving the line open to the control centre as he lay on the floor. Minutes later astonished dispatch centre staff heard their crew enter the house, apparently making disparaging comments about the state of the home.

What cruel and cold hearted men, if true! We hear a lot from government about the “caring” NHS but the reality is increasingly very different as this case illustrates.

Here’s hoping Israel completely ignores the flatulent burp from the Quartet to stop attacking Hamas terrorists. That is the last thing Israel should do.

In fact the reverse is true, it should heighten its assault on these merchants of terror and wipe them off the face of the Earth. They claim to love death, give them what they want, as Troll says in his excellent Trollcast! That might help decent Palestinians come out from under the dark shadow of Hamas, assuming they wish to do so.

I was also touched to see that even at this time of economic crisis Britain is sending several Million £££’s to Gaza to help the humanitarian relief of those poor Gazans. As for the Jews, not a penny. That’s the way the year ends in the Middle East – with Israel trying to excise Islamic terror on its’ doorstep and the rest of the world condemning it for having the temerity to exist. Raw anti-Semitism stalks this earth and we will see it manifest in 2009 just as in this year we are ending.

You do not defeat terrorism by rewarding terrorists, regardless of how many bleeding heart liberals argue otherwise. Want to know where that flawed approach leads to? Read UNIONISM DECAYED 1997-2007 - It's my first book and it explains what happens when you seeek to appease terrorists and call it peace. It's available right now for ATW readers so make sure you get your copy by emailing the editor! This is the book that dissents from the herd mentality that doing wrong can lead to being right. It doesn't and this book spells out WHY.

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